Yeovil Town’s Veil Of Silence

Earlier this week saw the twentieth anniversary of Yeovil Town’s move from The Huish, their famously sloping home since 1928, to the brand new Huish Park stadium. In the intervening two decades much has changed and, for Yeovil Town, this has meant moving into the Football League and establishing themselves in League One. There doesn’t, however, seem to be much of an atmosphere of celebration at this anniversary in Somerset, though, with Yeovil supporters becoming concerned at the behaviour of the club’s chairman, John Fry. There are now five registered companies associated with the club but, over the course of this summer and shareholders in the club are now being asked to vote for that most troubling of notions – the separation of the club from ownership of its own ground.

The first inkling of what was going on at the club was released to the local newspaper, the Western Gazette, at the start of June with a statement crammed full of what can only be described as “marketing bullshit”. Fry’s public statement on the subject deserves to be reproduced in full:

Our aim is to create a Yeovil Town holding company which will enable the directors to focus specifically on the development of our football and Huish Park assets and facilitate the enhancement of our brand. The recent and current economic climate has made it considerably more challenging to secure the necessary interest in any potential club developments, and the professional advice received has indicated that it will be significantly easier to attract the appropriate investment if our property assets are separated from the football club.

If we get past the, cough, “facilitation of the enhancement of the brand” for a moment, the end of that statement makes for very interesting reading. “Professional advice” may well have “indicated that it will be significantly easier to attract the appropriate investment if our property assets are separated from the football club”, but such statements aren’t worth a bean unless they explain how or why this should be so. It can make sense for businesses to split their assets, particularly if, say, a company has two businesses, one of which is having difficulties and another which trades successfully but could be put at risk by the collapse of the other. In cases such as this, however, Huish Park should seem to be inextricably linked to the well-being of Yeovil Town FC.

Other clubs – Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Stockport County, Rotherham United and Weymouth spring immediately to mind – have all done this varying degrees of disaster ensuing, but it would be unfair to immediately immediately cast Fry (and the other effective co-owner the club, Norman Hayward – the pair own 92% of shares between them) of anything nefarious. It has, however, been suggested in more than one quarter that the fact that South Somerset District Council is interested in spending £20m on a “Sportzone” in the town may well be the motivating factor behind such a transfer of assets. For now, though, the public face of the move seems to be using this sort of transfer of assets as beneficial because other clubs have followed this route:

“In recommending this action to our shareholders we are emulating a similar process to that already taken by a number of other football clubs who have sought to maintain the integrity of their assets. Realising the development potential of the site at Huish Park is absolutely essential for the club to generate new income streams to maintain its financial viability and become a force in League One. We need to attract the right investment partners and as part of this process we are now asking our shareholders to endorse and support the restructuring proposals.”

The feeling of suspicion surrounding what the motives of Fry and Hayward are amongst supporters has been further intensified over the last few weeks by several different factors, not least of which is the wall of silence that those calling for more clarity over the matter are facing. The Guardian’s Matt Scott (whose outstanding work in unravelling the truth behind the Notts County takeover last year pushed the true identity of those behind it out into the open) has also been trying to been trying to get to the bottom of it, but has been similarly blanked by the club. As he rightly points out, Fry and Hayward don’t have to answer to anybody – the vote is certain to go in favour of the proposal because of the fact that Fry and Hayward hold such an overwhelming majority of the shares – but the issues relating to, for example, whether Yeovil Town Football Club will be paying rent, effectively, to Fry and Hayward to continue playing at Huish Park and what valuation has been put upon the land that would be transferred out of the club’s name are serious ones, and it is entirely understandable that supporters are starting to fear the worst about their intentions.

Scott did at least get to the bottom of who the advisors were – the York-based solicitors Denison Till, and their Andrew Lindsay, has lodged a spirited defence of Fry and Hayward, stating that “These guys only want a better stadium and better facilities for Yeovil”, and that “they’re potty for the club and want it to do well”. None of this, however, explains why Fry and Hayward are transferring the club’s ground – its biggest saleable asset – into a separate company owned by themselves. Meanwhile, the Yeovil Town fan-site Ciderspace has pointed to the club’s “Customer Charter”, which Fry and Hayward seem to be in clear contravention of:

The Club consults supporters on a regular basis through public meetings organised by The Supporter Liaison Officer with all information being fed back through the Clubs Official Internet Site and Match Day Programme.

The Club publicises its position on major policy issues in a user friendly manner via the clubs Matchday Programme, specialist publications and the Clubs Official Internet Site.

The Club has and will continue to develop ways of consulting with shareholders, sponsors, season ticket holders and other interested parties.

No matter how much Yeovil supporters want to believe that the action currently being taken by directors of their club is being done for its long-term well-being, the silence coming from the club only fuels the belief that nothing good will come of this situation. The truth of the matter is that the club has nothing to dissuade anybody of this opinion and they have had plenty of time to do so. What, though, can supporters of the club do about this? Protesting against it may seem futile in view of the nature of the forthcoming vote, but what alternative do they have? Well, the only alternative is to sit back, keep their fingers crossed and hope that whatever happens turns out in some way to be to the benefit of the club and that it doesn’t cost it its long-term stability, and if the club itself wants to avoid that scenario, it would be best advised to start being a little more open with its supporters. At the moment, it feels as if the club itself doesn’t care, and the only people that can put that right are Hayward and Fry themselves.

8 Comments

Will
on August 20, 2010 at 8:10 am

Apart from the fact that The Glovers were at Huish from 1920 to 1990, an excellently researched article that hits the naily squarely on the head. The more publicity we can get for this, the sooner we might see some answers.

Thanks

Will P
on August 20, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Excellent to see more publicity of this situation.

Hopefully, as a result, a public explanation of the boards stance will soon be forthcoming.

Fred
on August 20, 2010 at 2:28 pm

Its time for Fry and Hayward to go. Thanks for what you’ve achieved, but go before you ruin the club.

Jack
on August 30, 2010 at 11:24 pm

We at Brisbane Road have recently suffered from the separation of ground from club that this article warns against. Yet, perhaps due to Chairman Barry Hearn’s excellent media connections, its received no press coverage whatsoever. That Yeovil’s situation has garnered national attention while we currently reside in a ground we don’t own and are due to start paying extortionate rent to our Chairman’s holding company, that now possesses the lease to our ground, is very worrying for us. Maybe someone from 200% would like to look into the case of Orient’s stadium, because I assure you, it makes for even grimer reading than this.

If there have been any changes to the situation since then that have sneaked under our radar, feel free to email me. The email address is in the Contact page (which is linked on the right hand side of this page).

Not to dissimilar to how Hearn acquired World Snooker. His proposal was:

“1. A new company would be set up to acquire World Snooker Limited for £1.
2. This company would have issued share capital of £500,000 (necessary to cover future losses while we build).
3. The shares in the new company would be allocated 51% to Matchroom Sport, a company controlled by me, 24% to other commercial partners and 25% to the Players who are voting members of the WPBSA at the time of acceptance of this proposal.
4. The Players 25% would be allocated on the basis of one point for each voting member, an additional point for players for each ranking event win or a Masters victory and a further additional point for any World Championship win i.e. two points.”

In essence, instead of the players controlling their sport (which is what happens in football at the moment), the promoter of a handful of players now handles it, all acquired for a quid, which is even less than what Hearn paid for Orient.

Chris
on September 6, 2010 at 12:41 pm

You could so easily be talking about Argyle here – it’s virtually an identical situation to what’s going on down here in Plymouth. (The main difference seems to be the Argyle Board’s pursuit of a World Cup host city slot – I shudder to think what their attitude will be if Plymouth/England is unsuccessful).

Spitting Tacks
on July 22, 2012 at 6:03 pm

It’s not directly relevant to Yeovil Town FC – but Mr Hayward has also been co-owner of delapidated St Michael’s Trading Estate in not-far-away Bridport since the 1970s. Though the estate is now falling down through lack of maintenance, it nonetheless provides a valuable home for local businesses and keeps 200+ locals in work.
However, Mr Hayward’s firm has just persuaded a compliant West Dorset District Council to allow him to knock a lot of the estate down and build high-density housing instead, a terrible loss for Bridport. There has been strong resistance to this destructive move from the local population, from expert consultees, from a community benefit society who offer to raise capital to buy the site and especially from the Council’s own planning officers, who were over-ruled by craven and easily-swayed councillors.
To paraphrase “Fred” earlier, “thanks for what you’ve achieved, but go before you ruin the town”.